2-) At this point, we can start with checking existing Virtual machine with following command:

support@tester:~$ VBoxManage showvminfo testMachine

Actually, our virtual machine has just been created but It hasn't got any hard drives and some of those settings may not required. For example, the existing virtual machine memory size is 128 megabytes. Probably you want to increase it. You may not want to use NAT mode ethernet device. Right now, let's change some options on our virtual sample.

Also you can change some of those options on HDD specifications and controller type and all of them. For example, you can select IDE for SATA in my sample. Or size of disk or disk format (VDI, VMDK, VHD) etc.

If you need, you can use "VBoxManage createhd", "VBoxManage modifyhd" or "VBoxManage clonehd" to create a new one, modify the existing one or create a copy of existing one...

6-) We need to mount a cdrom or dvd to our virtual machine to start operation system installation. The following command will download a dvd image from the debian site and do that mounting progress:

7-) Almost all mandatory steps are completed, except "remote display" one. We haven't got any GUI and we need a monitor to watch virtual machine output! We can use following first command to enable remote display feature and the second command to check the vrde option on our virtual machine.

We can boot testMachine but we have only one session right on VRDE. If we connect to virtual machine remote display from more than one clients, we have to change MultiConn option to "on". Also, if the port 3389 is used by another process we have to change it. Let's change the port and the multiConn option and then check it again,

Ok. Everything is well. But we want to auto start this virtual machine when booting the base operating system that is an Ubuntu server 11.10. In this case we have to write a start-up shell script and apply with updare-rc.d to inittab.

10-) The most important step of writing the start-up shell script is to set the right ownership. Because, we did everything as support user. But root user will execute it, when the base operation system is booting.

This file is recorded with the filename "testMachine_starter" in folder /etc/init.d. We give the execution permission using "chmod +x /etc/init.d/testMachine_starter". Now, we have to add it to startup with update-rc.d command like this,

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

This article is about Virtual Box installation and virtual machine / virtual operation system installation WITHOUT a Graphical User Interface (GUI). I'm using an IBM Blade hardware for this Installation sample. Some information for this hardware is shown in pictures below:

The IBM Blade Chassis Hardware Topology Inventory details

The IBM Blade Server that located in the IBM Blade Chassis

I want to describe hardware details and base operating system before virtual system because, this may affect virtual parts. Actually this risc is really very low for VirtualBox versus OpenVZ. Because there are criterias of hardware compatibility for other virtualization products. I'm going to use a Ubuntu Server 11.10 for base operation system so this OS is used by most of the people. Also I'm going to select a 64 bit operation system to able to use 64 bit virtual systems.

Mount iso image, and check KVM and media tray and power on as show in following movie.

5-) Installing the extension pack for Oracle VirtualBox. If we don't install extension pack, we won't be able to use remote display features. So our system hasn't got GUI yet, we can not start to install virtual system without extension pack. To install extension pack,